Encouraging you to vote yes on California’s Prop 8

Having had little (okay, let’s face it, NO) success in the world of LDS music publishing, I thought I’d try putting some of my music up here on my blog. The main options in the LDS world seem to be Jackman music and self-publishing. I’ve asked a few other companies about their policy on accepting submissions, and they either completely ignored me or else they only accept music from composers they’ve previously published. So here we are; I figured this would be worth a try.

I really don’t care about getting paid for my music, but I do want other people to try it out and hopefully enjoy it. Feel free to download it and use it. I just ask that you leave my name on the music, and that if you wouldn’t mind, let me know if you use it. I hope you enjoy what I’ve posted here.

For God So Loved the World – text from John 3:16-17. It’s an original composition, for 4 part women, but it does break into 6 parts briefly. Not for the faint of heart, it also sounds best with a larger group. This one came in as a finalist in the 2007 LDS music competition.

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing – A new setting of the old hymn. Standard SATB, not too hard. I think your average ward choir could pull this off pretty easily. This one came in as a finalist in the 2008 LDS music competition.

Charity Never Faileth – text from Moroni 7:44-47. For two part women’s voices, SA. Fairly simple, and would work well for a small group, I think.

We Three Kings of Orient Are – For TTB. A bit on the hard side, especially since the last verse takes the traditional minor melody and turns it into a major key instead. I figured singing “Glorious now behold Him arise” should sound glorious and joyful, not sad. I only included the first and last verses, but the first verse can easily be repeated if you wanted to perform all the verses in between. I have the lyrics somewhere if anyone wants them.

How Firm A Foundation – This is another hard one. Verse two splits into 3 part women, and verse 3 splits into 3 part men. I also added in the final verse to the hymn, since it’s my favorite, and the parts split beyond four for a little while there too. It uses polyphony in a few spots to add some extra interest. Well, imitative polyphony, to be exact – I think my BYU 101 music professor would appreciate it if I used the correct term.

Well Done, Thou Good And Faithful Servant / Consider the Lilies – This is an entirely un-original piece of work that I threw together as a violin/piano duet at the request of a sister in my ward. I basically took the existing piano and wrote out the vocal part as a violin part instead. The only hard part was figuring out where to join the two songs. So if your ward also happens to have a missionary homecoming and farewell all on the same day, this is a nice piece.

Abide With Me, ‘Tis Eventide – This is a simple rearrangement of the hymn for SSATB. The soprano gets high, but I didn’t want to put it any lower because of the bass.

Love at Home – This is another one I whipped out for a ward meeting. It’s TTBB. I think we did it for Mother’s Day or something like that. It’s not hard, as long as your men can read music fairly well. It works as a quartet or for a larger group of men too.

I Stand All Amazed – This one is really easy, and would be quick for a ward choir to pull together at the last minute. The piano part isn’t on the PDF, but it’s just the standard hymn. Make sure to point out to your pianist the different timing at measures 57-58 and 65 to the end. I think I had my pianist just let the choir sing measures 65-67 a capella, and then come back in for the last two measures. SATB.